Strong Ideas for School Marketers

An Outward Journey

Tommy Adams, Head of School at Grosse Pointe Academy, shared his take on The New Norm at the CAIS CT Commission on School Advancement’s Annual Spring Conference on Friday. Mr. Adams shared many strong ideas, one of which is directly relevant to today’s HelloJoe:

The importance to shift to an outward mindset.

The Journey: An audit of what you already know

The journey is a common content marketing tool most schools have well documented. The typical journey maps key touch points your audience goes through as they gain an in-depth understanding of your school.

The key here is ‘yourschool”. Used in this way, the journey is essentially an audit of your existing content and how your audience has traditionally interacted with your information. This is fine intel, but where is the real insight for pushing your content marketing forward?

The Outward Journey: Discover new ways to engage

To get the most out of the journey, we recommend you adopt an outward mindset just as Mr. Adams suggested on Friday. In fact, if you have limited time and resources, don’t prioritize mapping your school’s journey. It will only confirm what you already know and what you already do.

Instead, prioritize an outward journey. Here’s how:

Step 1: Think about your ideal audience (millennial parent, anyone?) and focus in on the brands they love outside the school selection experience. An easy place to start: What car do they drive? Or, better yet, what car do they want to drive? Hypothetically, let’s say the Tesla Model X comes to mind.

Step 2: Take a deep dive into how the Tesla team markets their story and map out the journey your ideal parent would go through to learn more about the Model X. Look at everything and every touch point – starting from their initial Google search – to Tesla‘s full suite of digital content – to the showroom and test drive experience.

Step 3: Take the time to map the outward journey. In this case, document specific design elements, specific words and the specific platforms Tesla uses to share their story.

You will discover many new creative ideas you can apply to your school’s story that will help to really differentiate your ideal parent’s journey as they learn get excited about your school.

See you next Monday,

P.S. If you are interested in developing your outward mindset, check out The TWIST by Julie Cottineau for a fresh perspective. I am a member of Julie’s Brand School faculty. In Brand School, we help entrepreneurs from all industries, including education, develop the skill of looking outward to strengthen their brands and stand out from their competition. In Brand School, we call this doing the TWIST.